Almost  Always
by nightlight's fire
Summary: An almost tragedy. An always future. An attempt to cross the bridge between the two. Kate/Rick. T because I don't understand the rating system. ONE-SHOT. SPOILERS: Cops and Robbers. COMPLETE.


**Scarred Heart**  
><strong>presents<strong>

_**Almost - Always**_

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><p><span>Summary:<span> A response to Cops and Robbers. Spoilers for said episode. This short story takes place over the course of the days following Cops and Robbers, and follows the emotional journey that demolishes Kate Beckett's fragile and cracked wall.

_Disclaimer: This story does not give me any profits. I don't own Castle, ABC, or any characters therein. If I did, there wouldn't be a wall in the first place._

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><p>Almost. It is a word that passes through Kate's mind frequently these days. She's almost caught her mother's killer. She's almost frozen to death. She's almost been blown up by a dirty bomb. The bullet almost hit her heart. It almost killed her. Almost is a word she uses a lot. When talking with Lanie, she almost lied about her feelings for Rick. When arguing with Rick, she almost destroyed the heart on his sleeve. It is impressive the amount of almost-things that she did.<p>

Her shrink - the shrink Castle had asked her to see - told her that she has commitment issues. He said that, because of her mother's death and her father's fall to alcoholism, she didn't want to get close to people. She had refused. She'd said that she had plenty of friends. Her shrink said that friends weren't always people that she was close to. He'd told her that the people who were truly close to her, were the people that she allowed to see her in her worst moments.

When she thinks about it now, a week after the session, she could see the hint that her shrink had dropped. He's right, too. Rick is the only person who sees her at her most vulnerable, he has been for years. She's only ever shown her strong side to her boyfriends. But not Rick. She may not like it, but Rick has seen her vulnerable side. He's been with her through pain, and he kows her. All of her. What frightens her isn't that Rick has seen it, what frightens her is that he hasn't run. She knows why.

And then she almost lost him. For a moment, she thought she had. She heard the explosion. She felt the ground shake. She felt her wall fall. She felt her heart on her sleeve as she walked out the door. She thought the one unwavering constant in her life had gone, had left her alone. Had broken the unspoken promise they made each time they said, 'Always.'

And that pain was enough to snap her awake.

The setting sun pierces the windows, bathing the bull pen a serene yellow and orange light. Kate finishes signing her name on her second last report, and tilts her head. Castle is sitting on the chair, playing on his iPhone. He looks up, meets her eye.

"Go home, Rick. Have dinner with Alexis," she says.

"What about you?" he asks. She glances at her remaining piece of paperwork, and smiles.

"I'll do it tomorrow morning," she replies. Shock is blatantly visible on his face. For the first time, Kate wasn't challenging him. She had accepted his advice.

"Sweet dreams, Kate. Sweet dreams," Rick says. The dramatic flair in his goodbye is drowned out by the sincerity of his words.

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><p>Kate is sleeping. She tosses and she turns. Sweat drops down her brow, her face contorted.<p>

_A bullet. A single bullet, from a flash of light she had just seen. Sometimes a single bullet is enough._

She rolls over, then rolls back.

_Blood. _

'_Whose blood?' she asks herself. Her hands are covered in red. She looks down. That face. _His _face. _

The despair in her mind is not describable by her actions. It just is. It always is. Whether it comes from a nightmare or a memory, it doesn't matter. Despair is despair. Anguish is anguish.

_A shirt. She remembers that it was white. It wasn't anymore. Red. Red with blood. It won't come out. There are sirens; she can hear them coming. Not fast enough. Never fast enough for the close; for the loved ones. _

A hopeless sigh escapes. Her body rests. The anguish has gone. All that remains is clarity that only the challenge of mortality can reveal.

_She looks at his face again. Rick. Her rock. Her crutch. She wouldn't survive another loss. Not this loss. His lips open; as if to speak._

"_Shhhh…" a breath leaves him._

"_It's okay. I love you," it is a whisper. Faint. So soft. So tender. So vulnerable. She needs her shoulder; her crutch._

"_I… know…Me… too," the paramedics try to move her. They can't. Nothing can. Always._

Her eyes open. A gasp. A sob. Both together. Anguish is gone. A hope_ful_ clarity is all that remains. Love. It has to be said, she realises.

While she was sleeping, the apartment was quiet. A toss and a turn, here and there.

Now, she is awake. The jangle of keys, the click as the door shut behind her.

Silence.

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><p>He's writing in his study, or rather, trying to write. Today has left him more shaken than he is willing to admit. He isn't sure why, but today has made him remember the robbery, and the explosion. One day in the long distant future he might write a story about it.<p>

He remembers Kate's face. As she walked into the bank; as she saw him after the explosion. The explosion had left him thinking he was dead for a moment. He has no doubt that she thought he was dead. Her face… it was a mixture of terror and despair; the pain of immense loss. Rick had always prided himself on being an observer. He knew her faces, all of them. The one with her furrowed brow, when she's concentrating or frustrated. Her mask, the defence she wears when anything about her mother comes up. Or at least, she wears whenever she's not with him. With him she's open. Her sly, coy face; the one she wears when the tease in her comes out to play. And those are just his favourites.

So he knew what she was thinking when despair turned to relief; when their eyes had lock.

His writing, and musing, is interrupted by a knock. He wonders for a moment who its, this late at night. But the fact that it was late at night tells him exactly who it is. Her. It could only be her.

He opens the door. She's standing there, soaked by the rain that is pouring outside, shivering, and somewhere between distraught and broken. Their eyes lock. A moment seems like an hour.

"Come on. Come in. It's got to be freezing out there," he says finally. She walks in; stumbles straight into his arms. He wraps his arms around her. Pulls her close. Gives her his warmth.

Tentatively, she returns the hug. Rick shuts the door as softly as he can, but it still slams. Stupid door. She flinches, unable to hide it because of their closeness. He starts rubbing circles on her lower back. She doesn't protest, doesn't pull away. She needs this. Needs him.

Rick leads them to the couch. He sits her down on the one closest to the warmth of the fire. He wraps her in the fattest blanket he can find.

"I'm going to find you some dry clothes," Rick murmurs to her. She's entranced by the flames. Her eyes are a far away.

He comes back in less than a minute.

"You've stopped shivering," he says as he sits down beside her. She's smiling now, at the flames. She turns to him, slowly. Vulnerably. Her eyes are definitely vulnerable. The smile stays.

"Yeah. The fire is warm. Those for me?" Kate asks.

"No, there for the invisible cat. You can change in my office. I'll be out here if you need me," Rick replies. She laughs a tinkerbell laugh, soft and small. The hidden meaning in the assurance isn't lost to her. He would be there for her; he _was _there for her. Always.

They are lying in front of the couch by the fire, wrapped up in more than one blanket. Together. She was snuggled into him, her head resting against his chest. His arm is around her. Holding her close.

"You had a nightmare, didn't you?" Rick asks, his voice penetrating the small, silent bubble they have. His heart is pained as she tenses. A short silence passes.

"Yeah," Kate finally replies. Her voice is choked. Rick can tell she's trying to hold back emotions. Floodworks.

"Want to talk about it?" he asks. Kate lets out a choked… he's not quite sure what. Maybe a sob.

"I've been having nightmares for a while. Since the bank," she says. She doesn't need to. He knows. He couldn't miss the tiredness, the weariness. "It showed me that your shadowing me is so dangerous -"

"Don't ask me to leave. I can't, Kate. Always means always," Rick interrupts. Kate sighs.

"Shut up and let me finish," she replies. His mouth shuts. "I wasn't going to ask you to leave. I don't think I could. The nightmare was at the funeral."

Rick wants to comment. He settles instead for playing with her hair. He can't see her whole face, but heavy breaths tell him that she needs to get this out.

"Only, this time… it wasn't me that got shot. It was you, Rick. I had your blood all over my hands. Your blood. There was so much…" her voice fails her. She can't talk about. She shouldn't have tried. It was just too painful.

And then she feels his fingers playing with her hair. Relaxing her. And she knows he doesn't care that she's vulnerable. She sees that to him, she's not any less of a person because of her vulnerability. The nervousness is gone. The tightness in her throat eases. Instead; clarity.

"You were dying. I told you… I told you that I loved you," she says. Rick's eyes widen, a memory playing in his mind.

"You said, 'Me too' and the paramedics came, and then it was over. I was in my bedroom. Awake," Kate whispers. Castle barely hears it, she speaks so quietly. The breath in his throat catches. His fingers stop twirling her hair between them in shock.

Such a quiet declaration. He thanks God for dreams in his mind.

"And I do," she says. He guesses. Life imitates the dream, only without the death. That was his hope. That had always been his hope. "I love you, Rick."

It is the first time he has heard his first name on her lips for a long while. It sounds good. If it sound good though, what comes before it sounds so brilliant that there are no words. He is a writer, and he has no words. He prides himself on conjuring and describing emotion with words. _But there are no words_.

This is love he's dreamed of. Love he's hoped for. He no longer has to wait for the embrace of a rare happy dream to see this love anymore. Nor does he have to wait for a wishing moment, where his imagination spins like wild. Reality was better. So much better.

"I know you love me too, I heard you. I never forgot. Amnesia is a pathetic excuse. I told myself that I needed space to cope with my trauma," he knows she's referring to the emotional, not the physical, "but what I really needed was a place to run. A place to hide. I realized, when that bank exploded, that there are no places to run, and I have no place to hide. And I don't want to. I love you," Kate says. "I'm so sorry for lying to you."

He can't hide the flash of pain that flickers across his eyes when she tells him the truth. Finally. He can't hide that it hurts him. She _lied_.

He didn't know whether to be more shocked about the fact that she'd lied, or that the love of his life had just admitted that she loved him back. He'd once read that happy emotions were more powerful than negative emotions. It was true, in this case at least.

"I'm hurt that you lied," he says. She flinches. Visible flinches. He starts rubbing circles on her stomach. "But it's in the past. Obsessing over it is going to do nothing but hurt us both. I don't care how we got here, Kate. I care that we're here."

She's propped herself on her elbow. Their eyes are locked. The smile on her face floors Rick. He sees nothing but her smile. Her eyes.

"I like being here," she says. Rick's eyes literally light up.

"So do I. Look at us. An almost tragedy to an always future," Rick says. Kate chuckles.

"We may not have drinks, but I propose a toast," Kate says. Rick laughs and nods.

"We'll seal it with a kiss," Rick replies.

"To always," she says. And they kiss. It is gentle at first, teasing. It quickly turns passionate. Kate shifts so that she's straddling Rick, and tentatively they kiss again.

In their hearts, the small parts of them that weren't filled with passion and lust during the night, they knew it was true. He was her one and done. She was his always. Always and forever.

_fin_

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><p><strong>AN:<strong>

Short and simple, this is my first attempt at first person writing in a long time. Reviews are appreciated, even if all you say is good or bad. To those of you that have stories that I've reviewed and are reading, I'd appreciate a review here.

To love and life.

_Scarred Heart_


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